


23 Dead Armadillos (On the Side of the Road)

by treefrogie84



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Identity Issues, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-06-29 22:54:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15738975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/treefrogie84/pseuds/treefrogie84
Summary: "The truth is, your identity already has been stolen."She can't be in the Bunker, not if the Winchesters are. She will not absolve their guilt for another her.





	23 Dead Armadillos (On the Side of the Road)

**Author's Note:**

> Summary quote is from [Frank Abagnale](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Abagnale)
> 
> Many thanks to [DontBeARuiner/ RedStapler](http://dontbearuiner.tumblr.com/) for the research assistance. (It's been a very long time since I was in west Texas.)
> 
> As far as I'm aware, this is canon compliant. There is nothing in this, I'm pretty sure, that isn't canon or canon-possible. However, since I've only watched the majority of season 13 once, I didn't tag compliant just in case.

“We’ve been on this road for six hours and haven’t seen another car in three. Ro, we’re lost.”

“We’re not. The energy clearly came from that direction.” Rowena pulls a hand off the wheel to wave vaguely north of them. “I will not have those boys locking up another artifact in that bunker of theirs,” she sniffs.

“You don’t even know what it is,” Charlie insists. “And that direction is pretty much the entire damn country, and all of Canada!”

“You offered remember? When you picked me up at that lovely little bar last night.”

“That was before I knew we were going to be driving for nine hours.” A pause, then, “Can you at least tell me something about what we’re walking into?”

Rowena wrinkles her delicate nose and licks her lips, “Fae, I think. Much closer than Canada, on this side of the mountains.”

“Fae. The aliens in Roswell not enough for you?” Twisting around, Charlie pulls the last water bottle from the back seat and twists it open before handing it to Rowena. “Last one. We should stop soon.”

“Next petrol station.” Rowena agrees, taking a sip of the water. “You know, many of the traditional aspects of aliens are also attributed to the fae.”

“Roswell was not,” Charlie insists. “It wasn’t aliens either. It was a surveillance balloon from the government.”

“As you say, dear,” Rowena replies, stretching her hands on the wheel before wrapping them back around one by one.

They pass a sign-- Carlsbad 45 Miles-- and Charlie pulls the map from where it’s haphazardly folded and stuffed into the glove compartment. They’d lost cell phone reception hours ago, leaving them with only paper to figure out where they are.

Short version? On Northbound US-285 in the middle of nowhere.

Charlie grumps, leaning back in her seat and staring out at the barely visible scrubland that surrounds them. She’s silent for another few miles, watching the sun start to poke above the horizon. There’s a dark lump on the shoulder that resolves into another sunbaked armadillo carcass in the headlights to the tally on the sheet of paper taped to the dash-- twenty-three now-- and sighs again. “West Texas is boring.”

“So figure out how to teleport,” Rowena snaps. “You wanted to come along while I searched out the last treasure troves from the Grand Coven.”

“I didn’t know there’d be so much… driving,” Charlie says. “And I couldn’t stay in that bunker. Sam and Dean seem like great guys but…”

“I warned other you about them too,” Rowena muses. “Said they’d get you killed. And they did.” 

“Thanks for the reminder,” Charlie says sourly. “That’s the problem. They got other-me killed and now they’re using me to excise their guilt.”

“Ach,” Rowena says. “Woe is me, someone cares that I bloody _died_.” She falls silent for a long time.

Dawn comes quickly to the desert, a gentle brightening until the sun is over the horizon and the full force of it beats down. Charlie winces and turns away from the window, watching the two lane blacktop stretching forever. 

Rowena is always beautiful-- there’s a reason Charlie approached her in the bar last night, and it wasn’t to cheer herself up, no matter the bar name-- but right now, with the early morning sun lighting her rose and gold...

“Sam’s going to kill me,” Rowena says, out of nowhere. “Had a chat with that jumped up reaper Billie a few months ago. No matter my end, it’s always at Sam Winchester’s giant bloody hands.”

Tossing the map onto the dash in front of her, Charlie crosses her arms. “I don’t-- I spent a few years apprenticed with a witch, before the angels took exception to witches working with hunters, killed Tasha and Max both. Don’t know why they didn’t wait around for Alicia and I, make a full sweep of it.” She swallows, watching the road and ignoring how utterly still Rowena is beside her. “I meant to go looking for them, on this trip. And then--”

She falls silent, not sure how to explain. Something Sam said in passing collided with a quick google search-- just to see if she could find them-- and… “They’re dead here too. Or Tasha and Alicia are anyway. No one’s seen or heard from Max in months, so he might be. And finding him just to ease my guilt? That’s not fair to either of us.”

“And this has what, exactly, to do with me?” Rowena raises a skeptical eyebrow as she slows and turns into a gas station.

“You wanted to know why I wanted out of that Bunker?” Charlie asks. “Dean looks at me, he sees _her_ and he flinches. Every. Single. Time.”

“So you stole her car and hightailed it to Austin?” Rowena glances over, parking the car and turning off the ignition. “There are worse places, I suppose. Well done, my girl. Now, do you remember anything Tasha taught you?”

“Most of it, I mean, it’s been a few years, and I’ve not tried here but I remember the basics.”

“Do you want to learn the rest?”

Charlie looks at her, long and hard. She was expecting to maybe kiss a pretty girl, ended up on a roadtrip, and now… “Yes.”

“Shall we get started then? Guaranteed way to make sure they don’t mistake you for her, ever again.”

Charlie looks around the tiny gas station, two ancient pumps and a shop that barely has room for a bathroom beside the counter and beer cooler. “Here? Now?”

Rowena raises her eyebrows, silently demanding an answer.

“I’m not-- I don’t--” Charlie inhales sharply, pushes down the sudden burst of anxiety. “Put away the eyebrows, they’re very demanding.”

“A simple hex, darling. That’s all.” When Charlie doesn’t immediately jump into action, she sighs. “I am an _evil_ witch, after all.”

Charlie snorts and takes a couple deep breaths. She can do this.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a cute, funny thing with Charlie and Rowena bickering about Roswell being aliens or fae. And then Charlie had to get serious and Rowena apparently was looking for a new apprentice and... yeah. :/


End file.
